


not that simple

by methequins



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, M/M, Not A Fix-It, Not Happy, Past Relationship(s), Post-Break Up, like holy fuck a lot of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-16
Updated: 2018-03-16
Packaged: 2019-04-01 04:19:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13990341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/methequins/pseuds/methequins
Summary: “I miss you,” Kent finally admits, the words he’s been holding in since the second he saw Jack finally slipping out, his voice quiet. Sad.Jack finally looks at him again, doesn’t say anything for a long time. “Yeah,” he finally says, and Kent has absolutely no idea what the fuck that’s supposed to mean.





	not that simple

The first time Kent sees Jack after everything goes to shit is during his rookie year.

They’re in Quebec for the second and last time that season, unless god forbid it ends up the Aces and the Habs in the playoffs, and it’s a rough game right smack in the middle of a rough roadie. Kent’s still getting used to the NHL. He feels like he’s in a fog most of the time, just pushing through more exhaustion than he’s ever felt in his life. He’d always expected the NHL to be life-changing, and it has been in a lot of ways, but.

He thought it’d make him happy.

He isn’t happy.

He’s grateful as hell, don’t get him wrong. And when he’s on the ice, it still feels like flying, that same sort of exhilaration he’s been chasing his whole life. And the Aces are great, he truly honest to god loves his team.

But then he looks over his shoulder to make a comment to Jack, and remembers that Jack isn’t there. That Kent hasn’t talked to him in months. And everything comes crashing back down around him.

Montreal brings memories, which Kent has been bracing himself for the past few weeks, because the last time he didn’t and when they got there it was bad. So he’s ready this time, and it doesn’t sting quite as much, it’s more of a low ache that stays in the background as long as he doesn’t focus on it.

It’s a bad loss that night, and they still have a few more games until they can go back home, and everyone’s wiped. No one’s talking about going out. Which Kent is glad for, because he doesn’t think he’d go if they had, not with the rest of the team anyways.

There’s a cafe he and Jack went once in a while, open late, some romantic little place that only serves things made out of chocolate. The first time he and Jack had gone there, Jack making fun of Kent’s mangled French as he tried to pronounce the name correctly, Juliette et Chocolat, Kent had been trying desperately to convince himself it wasn’t a date. The second time he’d known it was.

He doesn’t usually dwell on these things, doesn’t let himself. But sometimes... well, sometimes he needs to let himself wallow.

It’s snowing by the time he gets there, feels like the tips of his ears are frozen, and he really wishes he’d worn a fucking hat. This would be right about when Jack would give him shit for forgetting it, before he took off his own and stuck it on Kent’s head, and Kent would laugh and pretend the color on his cheeks was from the wind and cold. But Jack isn’t here, he remembers for the millionth time, despite the way he’s been double-taking at every tall guy with dark hair all night.

He’s about to go inside when he does it again, that double-take, but this time he’s met with icy-blue eyes and sharp cheekbones, looking just as startled as he feels.

“Zimms,” he says automatically, and Jack glances away as if Kent is talking to someone else, as if Kent would want to talk to someone else.

“Hey,” Jack says after a pause, sounding awkward. Nervous. Kent doesn’t exactly blame him. He doesn’t know how to feel right now either — whether he should laugh or cry or pull Jack to him and kiss him and never let him go again. “Euh. I saw the game tonight. On TV. That was a killer play at the end of the second.”

Kent lets out a little laugh, and he hates how sad it sounds even to his own ears. This is stupid. This is so fucking stupid, he hasn’t even talked to Jack in months and yet the second he laid eyes on him Kent’s heart started racing jackrabbit-quick in his chest, same as always. But there’s a bit of nausea there, too, because he knows Jack doesn’t want him. Not like that, not anymore.

Maybe he never did.

“Thanks,” Kent says.

Jack glances away again, looking shifty, and before Kent can say anything else, can ask what’s wrong or if he’s waiting for someone — god, maybe he’s here on a date himself Kent thinks, and the idea of it nearly sends him into hysterics — Jack is saying, “Do you wanna... go somewhere, maybe? It’s cold. You don’t even have a hat.”

The corner of Jack’s lips quirk up into a smile and Kent feels a small burst of hope in his chest. Maybe, maybe. Hope is dangerous, but it’s all he has. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, that’d be good.”

Jack lives just around the corner, and his parents are out, apparently. The walk is quiet, sort of stilted in a way things have never been between them before, short answers to short questions, and Kent’s once again reminded how much space has come between them in just a few months. He wishes he could bridge that gap, but he doesn’t know how to.

From the way Jack isn’t quite looking at him, Kent doesn’t think Jack would let him if he tried, and that hurts most of all.

At the house, the awkwardness doesn’t fade, and they sit on opposite ends of the couch, Kent watching Jack and Jack determinedly watching anything else.

“I miss you,” Kent finally admits, the words he’s been holding in since the second he saw Jack finally slipping out, his voice quiet. Sad.

Jack finally looks at him again, doesn’t say anything for a long time. “Yeah,” he finally says, and Kent has absolutely no idea what the fuck that’s supposed to mean.

Kent moves closer, doesn’t know how not to, and Jack doesn’t but he doesn’t move away either. “It isn’t the same, you know,” Kent says with a sort of distant little smile. “Playing without you. It really isn’t.”

Something flashes through Jack’s eyes, something hard and angry that Kent doesn’t know what to do with, but before he can dwell on it too much it’s gone. “You’re still playing pretty fucking well,” Jack says, his voice too flat.

“Not as good as I would be with you,” Kent insists. Jack looks away. Kent moves closer, again, rests his hand on Jack’s shoulder, his touch light, tentative. He hasn’t been tentative with Jack in a long time, not since that first time which feels like lifetimes ago now.

“Don’t,” Jack says softly.

Kent starts to pull his hand away. “Zimms-“

Jack kisses him, and it’s all Kent can do to kiss him back, like he’s been drowning all this time and this is his first gasp of air in months.

Jack still seems off, somehow, his lips a little too hard against Kent’s, but Kent can’t bring himself to worry too much about it, is way too lost in the fact that he’s kissing Jack at all, something he still thinks about doing just about every day and didn’t think he’d ever actually get to do again. He crawls into Jack’s lap, needing to be closer, needing anything, and Jack doesn’t argue, just starts fumbling with the buttons on Kent’s shirt, so he must be okay with it.

They were always intense, maybe too much, even that first time. Always competitive somehow, even in this. But the push-pull worked for them, and it works now, Kent already feeling drunk off it by the time Jack’s pushing his shirt back off his shoulders, pulling away to kiss down his neck. Kent hasn’t been with anyone in months, the last person he was with was Jack. He doesn’t want to be with anyone else. He wants this, forever, but he knows better than to say that aloud.

“I miss you,” he says instead, the words more like a sigh as Jack pulls back from his lips to kiss down his neck. Jack goes still, but just for a moment before his hands are tightening on Kent’s hips. “God, Zimms, I miss you.”

Jack doesn’t say anything, but then, he was never all that verbal, always much more into showing Kent how he felt than saying it. Which Kent was okay with, or tried to be, and he tries to be now, telling himself Jack wouldn’t be doing this if he didn’t miss Kent too, at least in some way.

He kind of wishes Jack would say it.

Kent’s shivering by the time Jack pulls away, having left a bruise in the hollow of Kent’s throat, and pulls his own shirt off over his head. Kent catches Jack’s face in both his hands, lets himself just look at Jack for a long moment, tracing the familiar lines of his jaw and cheekbones, those long eyelashes, the pretty curve of his lips with his eyes. Jack isn’t looking at him, but when he does, there’s something distant that Kent doesn’t like. He wants Jack to be here, with him, or if nothing else he wants to go wherever Jack is right now.

“Upstairs,” Jack breathes, and Kent just nods because he doesn’t know what else to do.

He kisses Jack one more time before getting up, a soft press of lips, and they collect their clothes and make the too-familiar trek to Jack’s room in nervous, anticipatory silence. Kent sheds the rest of his clothes once the door is shut behind them. Jack loses just his pants, goes to the drawer of the bedside table and gets the lube from the same place it’s always been.

Kent takes it, crawls onto Jack’s lap again, and he’s never been shy around Jack before but there’s something almost too intimate for what they are right now — nothing, they’re nothing right now — about Jack watching him open himself up, so Kent kisses him again so he doesn’t have to see. Jack doesn’t seem to mind, just puts a hand on the small of Kent’s back to hold him a little closer.

Kent can’t decide if he wants to take his time, enjoy every second for what it’s worth, or if he wants to rush it to get Jack inside of him, but from the way Jack is fidgeting between his legs Kent isn’t sure he’s got all that much patience left in him, and besides, Kent’s never been able to say no to Jack. So when he breathes, “Please, Kenny,” in this quiet, reedy voice, his lips brushing Kent’s with the words, Kent just nods and adds a third finger.

When he pulls back to look at Jack again, Kent can see he’s been palming himself through his boxers with one hand, and his eyes are half-lidded and his lips red from kissing and god, Kent knows he hasn’t ever seen anyone so beautiful, doubts he ever will again. “Please,” Jack says again, and Kent’s breath catches in his throat.

“Okay,” Kent says, and presses a few light kisses to Jack’s jaw as he fumbles with the lube again. “Okay, Zimms, I got you.”

When he sinks down onto Jack, slow as both of them try to catch their breaths, it feels like coming home.

Jack lets Kent take the reins at first, setting the pace, only using his hands on Kent’s hips to guide him where he wants him. That’s how it’s always been, Kent rushing straight in with Jack close behind, always right where Kent needs him most. Kent finds himself dimly, almost hysterically comforted that that doesn’t seem to have changed much, even though everything else has. He starts slow at first, wanting to drag this out as long as he can, but it doesn’t last long because he starts to get to that point where all he needs is more.

When Jack kisses him again, his lips are hard against Kent’s, almost vicious, and Kent can feel something simmering below the surface that seems unfamiliar, and he isn’t sure what to do with it. Things have always been intense, that much is undeniable, but the way Jack’s teeth scrape over Kent’s lower lip seems almost purposefully rough, and Kent faintly realizes that he hardly knows Jack at all anymore, but almost as soon as the thought’s come into his head Jack is wrapping his hand around Kent’s cock and then Kent isn’t thinking about much of anything anymore.

Jack’s hands, at least, are familiar. Big and warm and just a little bit rough. Kent always loved those hands, the feel of them on his skin, or even just clapping his shoulder after a good play. He still loves those hands.He still loves Jack.

He bites the inside of his cheek to keep from saying it aloud.

Jack shifts just right to hit his prostate, and Kent lets out a sort of surprised little cry, and feels the way Jack’s lips curve up against his own for just a second before he does it again. “God, Jack,” Kent says, reedy, his fingernails digging into Jack’s shoulders where he’s holding on tight.

It isn’t long after that that Kent feels the heat building deep within him, and he tries to stop it, because it’s too soon, he doesn’t want this to end yet. Maybe not ever. But there’s only so much he can do when he’s being subject to sensations like this, both physical and emotional, and everything seems to spill over at once with a moan that’s almost closer to a sob, his face pressed into Jack’s hair now, and he doesn’t know what to do with this, any of it. This was a mistake, he thinks as a lump builds in his throat, but there’s nothing he can do about it now.

Even when Kent’s finished Jack doesn’t stop touching him, doesn’t stop fucking him, and Kent’s always liked that before, letting Jack reduce him to a puddle of shaking, oversensitive nerves, but now it almost seems cruel. He tries to bite back the tears he can feel welling up in his eyes but there isn’t much he can do about it other than bury his face into the crook of Jack’s neck and sob.

It isn’t too much longer until Jack is finished too, and they both kind of collapse against each other, Kent trembling and trying to pull himself together even as he starts to feel like he’s drowning again, Jack just holding him and trying to catch his breath. Jack presses a soft, sweet little kiss to his temple and Kent clenches his teeth so hard it hurts but he can’t quite stop the quiet whimper that gets stuck in his throat.

He isn’t sure how long they stay there, just holding each other, until they’ve both more or less started breathing normally again. When Kent pulls away, he scrubs his hands hard over his face, embarrassed, but Jack doesn’t say anything about it.

Jack doesn’t say anything at all.

Kent glances at the clock on Jack’s bedside table and swears. “It’s after curfew,” he tells Jack, but makes no move to get up.

Jack sort of looks at him blankly for a moment. ”Yeah,” he finally says. “Yeah, you should go.”

Kent’s eyebrows furrow, and he looks at Jack’s face, trying to parse something, anything from his expression. He had gotten pretty good at reading Jack, or at least he’d thought he had. But right now, he has no idea what Jack’s thinking.

Finally, he sighs softly, reluctantly pulls away. He starts to get dressed, and he knows he needs to get back, but the last thing he wants to do is leave. He can feel Jack watching him, and sure enough once Kent is dressed, he turns and meets Jack’s eyes.

“I—“ Kent starts to say, but manages to stop himself before something stupid slips out. He frowns, and perches on the edge of the bed so he can press a soft kiss to Jack’s lips. Jack doesn’t quite seem to return it. “I’ll call you, okay?” Kent promises, his voice quiet.

Jack just nods, and Kent tries to smile.

A few days later, he calls. Jack doesn’t pick up.

 

**Author's Note:**

> the gang and i were talking about boys crying during sex and then this happened and i’m only a little bit sorry
> 
> this was written entirely in the group chat so if it’s a little clunky or there are errors my apologies i didn’t really bother to edit it
> 
> (p.s. juliette et chocolat is a real place and i highly recommend it should you ever be in montreal)
> 
> come say hi on tumblr!!


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